Always Pure
by TheOracle18
Summary: 'I have always thought myself to be quite eloquent but now as I sit in my room, surrounded by green and silver reminders of my duty to my family… I cannot find the words. Perhaps I should start at the beginning - the Dark Lord required an elf.' - Regulus Black's last thoughts - written as a diary entry - ONE SHOT


_Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Regulus Black, no copyright infringement intended._

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Dear Diary,

I know that I haven't written here for many years and all these years I have never felt the need to; I felt I had outgrown the childish habit. Until now.

I have discovered something. Something which makes me question… everything. Everything that was once certain. Unequivocal. Indisputable. Clear. My mind is now in a fog. Writing my troubles used to be my preferred method of sorting through these foggy issues, and I find myself reverting back to it now. Looking back through these pages at my childhood troubles, I almost want to laugh. If only I could return to the time when Sirius turned my bedsheets red and gold. I would laugh and laugh, and I would tell my brother that I loved him.

I have always thought myself to be quite eloquent but now as I sit in my room, surrounded by green and silver reminders of my duty to my family… I cannot find the words. Perhaps I should start at the beginning - the Dark Lord required an elf.

Like a good servant, I volunteered my elf's services. I went to Kreacher and told him to obey the Dark Lord's every command, just as I did, and then to return home. If I had known… but maybe not. I now realise that I have never been brave, I believe I would have preferred to live in blissful ignorance than know the torture of truth.

When Kreacher returned, I was waiting for him, he had been gone a long time and I had been worried for him. Kreacher is perhaps the only exception to my arrogant disdain for others. He has always cared for me, he nursed me at my sickbed as a child since Mother was 'too busy' to attend to me, whenever I did something to please my parents it was Kreacher that would bring me a treat in reward.

I was horrified when I saw that he was soaking wet, gasping for breath and trapped in some kind of terrifying vision. By the next morning the visions finally stopped and Kreacher seemed to be back to normal. He had enough strength to tell me of the events of the previous night, how the Dark Lord had taken him to a cave on the coast and cut his own hand to paint blood across the stone wall. A door had appeared, Kreacher explained, and through the door was a giant lake. Kreacher described it as inky black with a green glow in the distance; completely unnatural, he had felt scared. They walked for a time before the Dark Lord summoned a boat and they journeyed towards the green glow. They arrived on a small island with a basin filled with poisonous green potion. The Dark Lord commanded Kreacher to drink it.

Kreacher said that he tried to drink the whole potion, as ordered, but was plagued by visions which he vehemently refused to describe to me and I didn't have the heart to order him to. He pleaded with the Dark Lord to end the torture but he only forced him to drink more. After finishing he was overcome with thirst, like his throat was filled with dragon fire, he said, and he begged the Dark Lord for water. The Dark Lord laughed. He took a locket from his robes, placed it in the basin before refilling it with potion and returning to the boat, leaving Kreacher alone on the island. With no other choice, Kreacher managed to crawl to the edge of the island and reached for the water, desperate to quench his thirst. But as he tried to take a drink, he was pulled into the lake. By dead arms, he said. Scared and confused, yet unwilling to disobey me, he returned home.

The Dark Lord had used my families elf as nothing more than a disposable test subject, it is clear that he intended Kreacher to die in that lake. After such a story, the pieces came together with a sickening crunch and I knew that the locket Kreacher described to me was a Horcrux. The darkest of all magic. The Dark Lord has mutilated his very soul in his pursuit of absolute power. What else would he go to such lengths to protect? How many times has the Dark Lord bragged to us that he alone holds the key to eternal life? How many times has he lectured us on his supreme power? How he could never succumb to a mortal death? His words echo through my head. We all ignored the signs.

I have always respected my parents, always trusted them. They taught me that my blood made me stronger; superior in every way. To be a Black was to be divine. Now I find that we are just as flawed as those we condemned. My parents have always been proud of me and I lived to make them proud, their approving smiles filled me with joy, and never had their smiles been brighter than when I joined the Dark Lord. I was taught to rule, to lead, to command and yet I have followed a mad man like a dog on a leash. I allowed myself to be branded as though I was little more than cattle.

I was a child. A fool. I refused to recognise what I saw, that the Dark Lord was nothing more than a mad man. He fed us the pureblood line and we ate it up like bowtruckles on fairy eggs, but in my time among his ranks we have only ever killed our fellow wizards. Occasionally he releases his Dark creatures on a Muggle area, but I know it is only to appease us. I have more often seen him strike down one of his own Death Eaters with careless abandon than even suffer the presence of a Mudblood or Muggle. I have done unspeakable things, I have tortured and killed and laughed with my comrades as we played at being gods. I have contributed to a mindless slaughter of my fellow witches and wizards, even children. My conscience did not even whisper. Have we truly been so brain washed? If I ever felt a twinge of doubt it was thoroughly smothered by my own smug self-righteousness.

My bed frame is engraved with our family motto; _Toujours Pur_. I have slept in its shadow every night since I was a child. How I wish I was truly pure. I am sullied, my soul is black and I was too blind to recognise it. I wonder what my ancestors were thinking when they coined our family motto, was it as my parents believed and they were reaffirming our pureblood superiority, or was it something more. Did they want us to be pure of heart, pure of soul? I hope so, I would like to think that our ancestors were not as dogmatic as we have been. I hope they would be disappointed.

Maybe someday someone will read this and know how I have struggled with this knowledge, know that I understand that there is no redemption possible for my soul. My repentance is empty, remorse cannot change the past, good intentions cannot change reality and the reality of the situation I find myself in now is that I have put my trust and faith in the wrong man; the wrong ideals. I want to say that I did it for my family, to protect them, but that would be a lie. I did it because I wanted to. I was filled with righteous purpose and I let myself be twisted into something that I knew was wrong, it was all a lie. I thought I was fighting for a better future, but I see now that there is no future with the Dark Lord's cause, we will kill and kill until there is no one to oppose us and then we will kill some more.

What are my options now that my conscience has decided to speak? The only escape from the Dark Lord's service is death. I could run to Dumbledore but I would spend the rest of my life watching for shadows. I refuse to live in fear any longer but I am not one for grand gestures. So I will settle for a quiet rebellion, because I cannot let this monster continue to savage our world, not matter how flawed it may be.

But my family cannot know. I know they are marginally protected by their continued support of the Dark Lord. My desertion, should the Dark Lord discover the truth of it, will put them in great danger. I will be dead by the end of this night but I will not leave them to live and suffer the consequences of my choice. In any case, they would never understand, they are too set in their ways. I will miss them. Perhaps I should destroy this book so there is no possible way for them to discover the truth of my actions.

From Kreacher's description of the Dark Lord's locket I will be able to create a forgery, inside I will write a note, so the Dark Lord will know my true intention should he ever return to the cave, which I believe is unlikely, only his arrogance exceeds mine. I will order Kreacher to take me to the cave, he can guide us through the Dark Lord's protections until we reach the island on the lake. On the island I will command Kreacher to ensure that I drink the entire potion, then to take the locket from the basin, replace it with the fake, return home and use any means he must to destroy it.

It is my only wish that my actions now will help someway in the downfall of this insane tyrant. It is my hope that others will follow my lead, that others among his ranks will see the truth of the Dark Lord's power over us.

So ends the short and tumultuous life of Regulus Arcturus Black.

Goodbye.

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_Hi all,_

_So there you have it, my take on Regulus Black's last thoughts. I've had this one shot in my mind for a while and I'm so glad I finally finished it! Please let me know what you think, reviews are very appreciated!_

_Thanks so much for reading,_

_TheOracle18_


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